


song of solomon

by Askance



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Experimental, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 20:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askance/pseuds/Askance
Summary: His mouth.My mouth, John.What do you make of my mouth?





	song of solomon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vegetas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegetas/gifts).



His feet.

_My feet, John?_

They were, in point of fact, the warmest feet he had ever known. He remembers them sticking out from beneath the scratchy coverlet and mother-quilted blanket that made up his bed, his creaking, precarious bed, in which Harry slept like a stone until deep into the morning—his feet bare and pale and comical. When he was waking he would flex his toes and the eye would travel up to the smile on his face and the glimmer of London morning in his eyes. And at night, restless in his sleep, pushing against his shins and the covers, like a dog running in its dreams.

And he never had good shoes, never had the money to buy new ones or mend the ones he had—walked in his stocking-feet on the floor of the tenement house, quietly, like a laughing thief, so that creaking floorboards or heavy footfalls wouldn’t tell the neighbors that John Bridgens had a guest who came of an afternoon and left late the next day.

His hands.

_My hands, John._

They were rough with work, and only getting rougher—big hands, but graceful, and gentle. Hands that could heave rope or mend a sail as easily as they could turn a page or touch a shoulder. Harry was acutely aware of his own hands—always. Always conscious of their movement in space, in the air. Gesturing, animated, excited, tracing lines of text, cramped around a pencil and making crude marks in the pocketbook he used to practice English, Latin, Greek. Cheeky words that he sought out to make John Bridgens laugh—where he got them, he would never know—dictionaries he didn’t own. _Γαμώ._ _Μουνί_. Those fingers pausing on long and elegant lines to make John Bridgens blush.

_Favus distillans labia tua sponsa mel et lac sub lingua tua…_

His hands in John Bridgens’ hands. On John Bridgens’ shoulders. His face—his back—his arms around John Bridgens. His knuckles skimming John Bridgens’ cheek, his fingers full of so much, the potential for tenderness.

His mouth—

_My mouth, John._

_What do you make of my mouth?_

Of his mouth he always felt too much. Loved it for its grin, its white teeth, its occasional stutter, loved it for its tongue that was so curious, in language and in feeling. For the vulgar things, and the mundane—Harry’s mouth loves names, loves catching them and turning them, feeling all their edges, repeating them until they become nothing—just noise, the breaking of water on shore. Sea-words most of all. _Scylla_ and _Charybdis,_ and _Circe_ and _odyssey_ and _Tethys._ John Bridgens is a steward, not a seaman, and Harry’s mouth fits lovingly around _topgallant_ and _fo’c’sle, list_ and _reeve._

His mouth had kissed first, and then laughed afterward, a surprised and joyous noise, as if he couldn’t believe he’d done it—and then a quieter mouth, a softer kiss, a full and open and giving thing, discovering.

Harry would read to him from his bed, head propped up against the worm-eaten headboard, mismatched syllables and mistaken words, but soldiering on—always on.

His eyes.

_My eyes, John._

Bright and attentive eyes. Eyes full of light. They caught any gleam that came to them, any candlewick, any gaslamp,

(any Preston’s Patent Illuminator—no.)

They caught any gleam that came to them, caught it in their pupils. Always laughing, his eyes, and always warm, and his gaze adoring, especially and only for John Bridgens—he has let himself be flattered there, that Harry looks at him like that, as if he never needs to look at anything else again. (Looked).

And his—

_John._

He had been shy—not the shyness of uncertainty, but the shyness of a man humbling himself—but he had looked up with trust to let John Bridgens touch him, had watched his hands as they traveled, admiring the solid muscle beneath his flesh, the pointed bones of his hips, in a way less like a lover—more like the holding of a prized and precious possession—Harry’s body like a fine poem, or the flying buttress of a church—perfect, and private, and respected. Five months John Bridgens had had with Harry’s body, and many dreams besides,

(and the touch of his hand sufficing in the passing darkness of endless winter to keep the image alive, of)

Harry standing shy and naked in the slum one-room above the crowded London street, his bare feet planted on the floor, his hands relaxed against his thighs, waiting to be taught.

_Your hands, John._

Always shy, but never ashamed.

_Your hands must be so cold._

The line of his jaw, defiant. The arch of his back.

_Your eyes, John._

Harry delighted, in those months, at being seen. Pulling his shirt on over his head, eyes meeting, a smile splitting across his face, as if to break him in two. Delighted to be looked at with fondness. His laugh like spring. He had laughed so often and so dearly, and never more than with John Bridgens’ lips against his throat, the warm vibrato of his laugh.

_Your eyes must be so tired._

_Osculetur me osculo oris sui quia meliora sunt ubera tua vino…_

Harry, who never held him too tightly when waking—asleep, he sought warmth like a newborn creature, found the places of John Bridgens’ body to slot himself against, and slept there on his side, snoring softly, every inch of him languid and relaxed, a peace John Bridgens envied

(envies now—but it is coming; the pale sun is setting; someone is sitting cross-legged just behind him where he has turned his back on Terror Camp, murmuring beneath the wind).

_Η θάλασσα, η θάλασσα._

_My sleep, John._

(His feet, skirting the shale and rock as they settle into the Earth. His hands reaching down to smoothe John Bridgens’ hair away from his brow.)

_Come to sleep with me._

( _To sleep,_ he smiles and says, with what little voice there is left, _ad somnum;_

and the ghost of Harry Peglar laughs.)

 


End file.
